Alternate Ending
by Agent Malkere
Summary: I simply couldn't accept that Nathaniel died in the end, so I came up with this... Heh, it's even plausible! One Shot, NathanielKitty all the way! Please R&R! Tell me what you think!


Disclaimer: I don't own the Bartimaeus Trilogy or any of the charters. If I did, the ending would have been much different….

_This picks up right before Nouda came over to quash Nathaniel…_

There was one last thing I could do, though. As Nathaniel gabbled out the last words of Dismissal, I tapped his heel and activated the seven-league boots. He may have forgotten about the hole in the wall behind us from that last Detonation, but I hadn't.

Hey, you didn't _really_ think I was going to let it happen to me twice, did you? I can't take two forms at once, you know.

Chapter 39

Kitty

The dusty pages of yet another atlas from the library's shelf rustled gently against her fingers as Kitty flipped through them again. Yes, she would go to Egypt, but where? Alexandria or Cairo, maybe? Where was it Bartimaeus had said Ptolemy had lived? She turned at the sound of a quiet cough from the doorway behind her.

"Ms. Jones," Ms. Piper smiled tiredly at Kitty, "there's a message for you from St. Michael's Hospital. Apparently someone there has been asking after you."

"Who?" asked Kitty glancing up from the atlas.

"That's the rather odd part," Ms. Piper frowned slightly, "they didn't actually say."

A car drove Kitty to the hospital, despite having three days of recovery time she was still not strong enough to walk all the way on her own. The nurse at the front desk looked up and smiled as Kitty entered through the rotating doors,

"Can I help you, Miss?"

"My name is Kitty Jones. I got a message saying someone had been asking for me." Kitty attempted to smile, and failed. Being in the hospital reminded her too much of everything that had gone wrong three days earlier. The nurse, however, beamed at her,

"Right this way, Ms. Jones. He'll be very happy to see you!" _Who?_ wondered Kitty, automatically quelling the small hope that had begun to rise in her. No point getting disappointed again. The nurse babbled on to herself,

"He's very lucky, you know. When they brought him in, the doctors really thought he was a goner and it took nearly twenty-four hours to stabilize him. It's amazing he pulled through considering the condition of his side!"

Kitty was led to a small, white hospital room which was crowded with several quietly beeping monitors surrounding the bed in the center. The young man in the bed was pale; his once back hair had faded to blond. His skin was covered with tiny, now healing blisters; his shoulder was covered with a white bandage as was the rest of what Kitty could see of his torso, his chest rose and fell with each breath. He was breathing, not crushed under the remnants of the Glass Palace as she had believed for the past two days. He was alive, not dead with Nouda, but _alive_. The boy on the bed stirred and opened an eye, a smile spread across his tired face,

"Hello, Kitty."

Nathaniel

Her aura bathed the little room on plains two through seven with a light that took Nathaniel's breath away. He switched to only the first and second plains so that her light wouldn't overpower him. Some distant thought wondered how he could see all seven plains even though he had Dismissed Bartimaeus, but he was too exhausted and happy to give the question any thought. Another question pushing at the edge of his mind was how was he still alive? Nathaniel vaguely remembered dropping something then seeming to fly backward, a wall of fiery light chasing him a mere hand's breathe away, hard ground, panicked voices, and then, nothing. Nothing until he'd woken up to the blinding white of a hospital room and asking where Kitty was only to be repeatedly asked who _he_ was. None of that mattered to him now, though. Kitty was there, she'd gotten away in time.

"You're alright?" Nathaniel asked hoarsely.

"Yes, I'm fine, though I'm not sure I could say the same for you," Kitty attempted to glare at him, "What happened to 'I'll meet you outside' or 'We'll be fine.' You don't look fine to me!" She knelt down beside his bed and took his hand. Nathaniel felt a pleasant tingle run up his spine.

"Bartimaeus is already back in the Other Place, I Dismissed him, and I'll be fine now." He squeezed Kitty's hand gently, and closed his eyes, "Just don't take me to any more plays." In a moment, Nathaniel had fallen back to sleep, a smile on his face. Though, if anyone would have asked, she would have denied it, there were tears in the corners of Kitty's eyes.

Epilogue

So much to do, so little cooperation from the Commoners' representatives. Ms. Piper sighed, that man, Nicolas Drew, was causing far more than his fair share of problems. Hadn't he ever heard of compromising?

"Ms. Piper?" A tall young man came striding over to walk beside her. "Commoner representatives being difficult again today?"

"Yes," she smoothed down her normally crisply pressed suit, "Days like today make me want to pack them all quietly off to the Tower. Do you have the reports on the return of troops from America, Mr. Wentworth?" Her secretary handed her a large filing folder.

"Yes, Ma'am. If I may inquire, why don't you ask that girl, Ms. Jones, to help sort things out? She can find a middle ground that the Commoners will agree to."

"I would if I could, but she is no longer here." Ms. Piper flipped through the documents in the folder and frowned. That Commoner Representative would probably find something in this to complain about, too.

"Really? What happened to her?"

"Ms. Jones left with Mr. Mand-" Ms. Piper corrected herself, "Nathaniel about a month ago. They were planning on touring the world, beginning in Alexandria, I think. Ms. Jones was hoping it would help them regain their health." Ms. Piper paused, then almost to herself said, "And I heard them mention something about writing a book…"

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